Study the Immunomodulatory Effects of Human Regulatory T Cells in the Patients of Perennial Allergic Rhinitis on the Treatment of Mixed Formula of Chinese Medicine

The prevalence rate of allergic rhinitis gradually increased in recent years. Chinese traditional herbs have been tried in the treatment of allergic diseases by many authors, like Kaneko et al. 1997. However, these authors only used one compound formula in their studies. In our previous studies, a new mixed formula of Chinese herbs was first used to treat the patients suffered perennial allergic rhniritis, from the results of study, we believe the unusual modulation of Th1/Th2 cytokine in mononuclear cells and suppressed COX-2 expression in PMN become the immunological mechanism of mixed Chinese herb formula therapy in the suppression of allergic rhinitis. Further study, we found in high IgE group, the cytokines IL-10 and IL-12 secretion from DCs were elevated after treated with herbal medicine, but we did not found same condition in lower IgE group, the expression of HLADR; co-stimulators CD54 and CD 86 were suppressed after treated with herbal medicine for 3 months, the results provide the fact that Chinese herbs can modulate the immunologic function in the treatment of allergic rhinitis via regulated the DCs functions. Recently reports showed that the increased levels of interleukin-10 (IL-10) and transforming growth factor-TGF-that are produced by Treg cells, potently suppress IgE production, as our previous studies, we found IL-10 production modified by the treatment of herbal medicine play an important role on the immuno-modulatory effects of Chinese herbal medicine. This year, we found the expression of Treg of the allergic patients were lower than the normal individual, besides, levels of CTLA4; Foxp3; IL-10 and TGF-also lower than the normal individual, this effects were collected after treatment by herbal medicine. The study of first year, we try to compared the protein expression over nasal discharge collected from the allergic patients and also we will co-cultured with nasal discharge and T-lymphocyte in order to realized the immuno-mechanism of herbal medicine done. The second year, Treg will be co-cultured with Chinese herbal medicine in vitro, in order to get the evidence of immuno-modulation of herbal medicine. In third year, aqueous extracts to be the fraction of APF and NAPF of herbal medicine will be co-cultured with Treg, the results of this study will help for the new drug development in the future.

Project ID:PC9902-0742
External Project ID:NSC98-2320-B182-022-MY2